


A.Z. Fell & Co

by VarjoRuusu



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Missing Moments, Snake Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 03:32:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19348645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VarjoRuusu/pseuds/VarjoRuusu
Summary: Haven’t you ever wondered who the ‘& Co’ is?





	A.Z. Fell & Co

London - 1864

_The A.Z. Fell & Co bookstore opened on a small corner in London in 1627. The shop was owned by a succession of small, white haired men, all presumed by those around to be a line of father to son to son to son etc. This, however, was not the case. There was only one man, and he wasn’t really a man as you might think of a man. He was, in fact, an Angel___/_

“Crowley, will you stop it, I’m trying to write up a history of the bookshop,” Aziraphale muttered, nudging his friend out of the way.

Crowley, with a defiant hiss, curled his entire serpentine body over the page Aziraphale had been writing on, covering the ink entirely, and probably smudging it too.

“Look, you know I don’t mind if you hang about in that form, I know you don’t really have anywhere else you can except a reptile house, but would you please stop slithering all over my papers?” Aziraphale said, uncharacteristically grumpy.

Crowley eyed him for a long moment, rearing his head up and turning one eye to the frustrated Angel. Then he appeared, because how can you shrug without shoulders, to shrug, and slid off the desk. Not onto the floor, or a stack of books, or the chair next to the desk for when he wanted to bother Aziraphale in his human form, but onto Aziraphale himself, sliding up his arm and settling around the Angel’s shoulders with a soft sigh.

“Well...” Aziraphale said after a moment, staring at the snake who had, for all appearances, tucked his head against Aziraphale’s neck and gone to sleep. “All right then,” the Angel sighed after a long moment.

_The bookshop had only been open for two or three days when a mysterious presence appeared. During the night books would topple over, and every morning, when Mr. Fell came down to open the shop, there would be rather a mess waiting for him. Several days later, he came down early, and to his great surprise, spotted a snake slithering amount the books, knocking them over willy-nilly with his tail._

On the desk a candle sputtered and Aziraphale paused, silently thankful that Crowley had never managed to knock over a candle and set fire to his shop. 

_Mr. Fell recognised the snake at once, of course, as his old nemesis-turned-friend, Crowley, a demon who could shape shift into a snake at will. Not sure why Crowley was knocking his books over, Mr. Fell didn’t bother the snake, but did leave a note for him the next evening. It simply read ‘You’re welcome to stay, just stop making a mess’. The next morning Mr. Fell found Crowley curled up in a patch of early morning sun, all books and papers exactly where they were meant to be._

“Honestly?” Aziraphale muttered as Crowley, seemingly still asleep, slid down his arm and curled around his hand, once more preventing him from writing. “It’s not going to stop me, you know. I’m writing this little history whether you like it or not.” 

With a sigh, Crowley slid off the Angel and onto the floor, transforming in a puff of black smoke and flopping his long human limbs into the chair.

“I don’t know why you bother, Angel,” he signed, fishing a pair of glasses out of his pocket and slipping them on. “No one is going to read that. You can’t leave it out in the shop anyway.”

“Yes, well, I rather thought I should write something down,” Aziraphale muttered, glancing at Crowley, somewhat disappointed that the glasses were back in place already.

“No one cares, Angel,” Crowley muttered and Aziraphale looked at him, long and hard. 

“I care,” was all he said, and they left it at that.

— 

London - 1968

Over the last 100 years Aziraphale had continued writing up his history, in his spare time, and when Crowley was decidedly not in residence. He’d stuffed the papers in a drawer shortly before the blitz and had promptly forgotten all about them. Now as he stared down at the writing, and the smudges on the first paragraph from when Crowley had tried to sabotage him, he smiled.

He’d come to a realisation in 1941, a terrifying realisation, honestly, one that he spent most of his time trying not to think about. He loved a demon. Was more than likely in love with a demon. It was a nightmare.

Something bumped his foot and he looked down, smiling.

“Oh, hello there,” he said, watching the small snake twining around the chair and up to his arm. “Feeling a bit under the weather?”

Crowley hadn’t visited much after their fight in the park, but since Aziraphale had given in and gotten the demon the holy water he’d asked for, Crowley had taken once more to appearing at odd times in the bookshop, in both his human and serpentine forms. Aziraphale was no longer surprised to put down a book he’s spent the last three hours reading to find a snake curled up on the coffee table or some such, without his noticing. 

What he had noticed was that Crowley most often appeared in his shop as a snake when the demon wasn’t feeling well, or had had some bad encounter with another demon or the like. He rarely admitted it to Aziraphale but the Angel knew anyway.

Crowley also always appeared in different sizes, depending on his mood.

One memorable occasion had yet to make it in the chronicle, when a customer had gotten rather uppity with Aziraphale over a book, and Crowley had appeared from the back room, changing from the size of a water snake to a boa constrictor in the blink of an eye. The customer had run screaming, of course, and Aziraphale had been too stunned to do anything but stare as Crowley chased them out the door, watched them run down the street in hysterics, then, with a very snake like nod, the demon had returned to Aziraphale and draped across his shoulders, now a much more reasonable size and weight.

Smiling, Aziraphale proceeded to find a fresh page and a pen, and started writing the incident down. Surprisingly Crowley, who was now in his favourite place curled around the Angel’s shoulders, didn’t protest, just read with interest as the words appeared on the page.

“I did not try to bite them!” Crowley’s voice suddenly snapped and Aziraphale jumped, looking around to find the demon standing behind him looking miffed.

“You did! I saw you!” Aziraphale said, hiding a smile. Crowley rolled his eyes and flopped into his chair, which creaked ominously, already reaching for his sunglasses. 

“What happened?” Aziraphale asked, reaching out and plucking the glasses out of Crowley’s hands and placing them carefully on the desk. The demon frowned, then sunk further in the chair.

“It’s coming,” he mutter morosely.

“What is?” Azriaphale asked, writing a few more words.

“Armageddon.”

Aziraphale froze, looking up it the demon in shock.

“What? But? How? It’s only been 6000 years, and the world is supposed to end? Already?” he sputtered. Crowley just nodded.

Aziraphale took a deep breath, then abruptly stood up and went to the back room, coming back with a bottle of scotch and two glasses. Crowley had taken his sunglasses back and they were sitting on his face, and Aziraphale sighed internally while pouring them both a strong drink. He sat heavily, refilling both glasses almost at once, and took a breath.

“When is it supposed to happen?” he asked. 

Crowley shrugged. “Ten years, a hundred years. Soon.”

“My goodness,” Aziraphale muttered.

“Quite.”

—

London - 2019 

“Well, that went well I thought.”

Crowley eyed the Angel over his sunglasses. “The world nearly ended, angel.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale said with a bright smile. “But it didn’t.”

“It didn’t, did it,” Crowley said softly, looking away and across the park.

Aziraphale smiled, taking a breath. If the world hadn’t ended in a fiery manner that had been predicted for hundred of years then it wasn’t likely to end if he just...mind made up, Aziraphale reached over and laid his hand over Crowley’s where it rested on his thigh casually, the demon’s trademark slouch in place. 

He held his breath, but Crowley didn’t react for a long moment, and when he did...it was so simple that Aziraphale thought he might burst from joy. The only movement Crowley made was to turn his hand palm up, lacing their fingers together and quietly accepting that Aziraphale had finally, finally caught up. His hand tightened and Aziraphale saw the demon relax completely.

“Took you long enough,” Crowley muttered softly and Aziraphale let out the breath he’d been holding.

“I am truly sorry, my dear. But the end of the world does tend to put things in perspective,” the Angel said quietly.

“Well,”’ Crowley said softly. “I suppose it does.”

—

London

_A.Z. Fell & Co reopened the day after the world nearly ended, all books restored, along with several new ones, and all signs of the devastating fire gone, wiped from existence by Adam’s magic. Once more a man in a white suit, with silver white hair, could be seen moving around his shop putting books here and there, reading with a magically refilling cup of tea at his side, or simply watching the people walk past outside his window. In every instance it was likely you would also see one of two things. Either there would be a snake draped over the man’s shoulders, or curled up somewhere in the sun, or, you might find a taller, lankier man, dressed all in black, loitering around the shop, or even asleep with his head in the Angel’s lap as he read._

_So yes, after the Armageddon-that-wasn’t Crowley became an entirely permanent fixture and people stopped asking the question that had been asked the most in the history of the small shop: Who was the ‘ & Co’?_

_Maybe Aziraphale really had known all along, and hadn’t taken quite as much time as he thought to catch up._


End file.
